


(Stuffed) Sharks Have No Bones

by oflightningandstars



Category: Nimona (Webcomic)
Genre: Based on a childhood experience, Gay Dads AU, Gen, My personal headcannon for the Gay Dads AU is that the family pulls truly epic pranks on each other, Pranks, Sharks, Stuffed Toys, To An Extent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24794155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oflightningandstars/pseuds/oflightningandstars
Summary: Ballister comes home with a surprise for baby Nimona. Baby Nimona likes pranks. Ambrosius is not thrilled. (Nimona Gay Dads AU)
Relationships: Ambrosius Goldenloin & Nimona, Ballister Blackheart & Nimona, Ballister Blackheart/Ambrosius Goldenloin
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	(Stuffed) Sharks Have No Bones

When Nimona was three, Ballister came home from work with a surprise.

Nimona was sitting on the couch watching her favorite shark documentary (yes, she had seen more than one, and yes, she had a favorite) for the upteenth time (and probably not the first time that day; Nimona could usually convince the sitter to put it on again). Nimona could see that Ballister was holding something behind his back, but he deftly maneuvered around the living room, pausing the television as he went, without revealing it.

“So, I was on the way home from the lab when I stopped to get gas,” Ballister started. Nimona stared at him, unimpressed.

“And in the window of the convenience store, I found this, and… well, it was a bit of an impulse purchase to be honest. You won’t tell Ambrosius, will you?”

Nimona narrowed her eyes. Even being a toddler, the effect was still somewhat threatening.

“Okay. I present to you…” and he pulled a stuffed shark from behind his back.

“OOH! Shark!” Nimona squealed, reaching for it with small hands.

Ballister chuckled at her enthusiasm.

“Daddy, it’s a hammerhead shark! Their eyes are far apart so that they can see more of the ocean, so they can better EAT THE FISHES!”

“That makes sense. And here, let me show you what it can do--” He reached towards the shark, but Nimona squirmed away.

“No, you’re really gonna like this.”

After a short standoff, Nimona held the shark out to him.

“So, if you press the shark’s fin…” He squeezed the shark’s fin where a small patch read “Press to make me talk!” Nothing happened.

“Hang on…” It took Ballister a few more tries, but he finally found the right spot.

“I AM A HAMMERHEAD SHARK,” the shark explained in a solemn, almost ominous, voice. “SHARKS HAVE NO BONES.”

Nimona was thrilled.

She found the button herself, and pressed it with a grin that Ballister knew even then spelled trouble.

“I AM A HAMMERHEAD SHARK. SHARKS HAVE NO BONES.”

Before Ballister could figure out what Nimona was plotting, the front door opened and Ambrosius walked in, arms full of groceries. He kicked the door closed behind him as Ballister relieved him of several bags with a kiss on the cheek. Nimona gave Ambrosius a hug (which more closely resembled her clinging to his leg as he tried to walk to the kitchen), before she resumed watching the shark documentary.

When the groceries were all neatly put away (Ambrosius had recently been on an aesthetic organization kick, so the pantry contained rows of boxes and cans and bottles arranged by color and size. It looked nice, but every time Ballister went to get something, he always put it back in the wrong place, much to Ambrosius’s displeasure), Ambrosius went into the family room, sat down in the armchair in the corner, and picked up the book he was currently reading. As always, it was some paperback, the type that Ballister looked down upon, declaring that such trash shouldn’t bear the title of “book.” Ballister sat at the kitchen table with his laptop, looking over the data from his latest experiment. This was a fairly typical afternoon in the Blackheart-Goldenloin household. Evenings were spent as a family; Ballister and Ambrosius would make dinner, switching off entertaining Nimona and actually cooking. If the weather was nice (or even if it wasn’t), they would go for a walk before getting Nimona cleaned up and in bed. Afternoons, however, were where each family member would do their own thing and relax.

A part of Ballister’s brain registered that the house was too quiet; going by where Nimona had been in the documentary when he’d come in, there should still be about ten minutes left. (Yes, Nimona had watched it so many times that Ballister could accurately match portions of the documentary to their timestamp.) It was unusual for Nimona to pause a program on sharks willingly, but Ballister wasn’t too concerned at first. As he thought about it, though, he remembered Nimona’s mischievous look from earlier and decided to investigate.

Upon entering the living room, Ballister found the TV paused and Nimona slipping into the hallway. He followed her quietly, but she noticed. As she padded towards the family room, she held a finger up to her mouth. Ballister wasn’t sure if she had learned “shh” from himself or Ambrosius, but he was sure that the introduction had happened during a not-infrequent prank. Which was what this seemed to be. Ballister wasn’t sure whether to be proud of his daughter or to quake in terror at the prospect of the horrors she would soon be unleashing.

Nimona snuck into the room where Ambrosius sat, engrossed in his book, oblivious to the impending chaos. Ballister noticed that Nimona was carrying the shark, and he tried not to laugh. This was going to be good.

Ballister hung back in the hallway and watched as Nimona carefully made her way over to Ambrosius. She pressed the button, and quickly held the shark out in front of her.

“I AM A HAMMERHEAD SHARK. SHARKS HAVE NO BONES.”

Ambrosius shrieked.

“GAAHHH! GETITAWAYGETITAWAYGETITAWAYGETITAWAY!”

He swatted at the air where the shark had been, flailing his arms and legs as if something were crawling on him.

Nimona had collapsed on the floor, cackling, and Ballister was laughing from the doorway.

“What the HEL--” He noticed Ballister, who was giving him a “there is a child here” look, despite wheezing with laughter.

“--ECK. What the HECK is that THING?”

“It’s a hammerhead shark, Papa,” Nimona said from the floor. “See?”

And she pressed the button again. Ambrosius looked horrified as the stuffed toy gave it’s spiel again.

“I blame you.” He glared at Ballister, who shrugged back.

“What can I say? I saw it and thought of her.”

“Well, I don’t like it.”

Nimona squeezed the shark’s fin again for good measure.

“BALLISTERRR.”

Ballister tried to give Nimona a stern look, but he couldn’t stop laughing for long enough to have any real impact. If anything, Ballister thought, he had probably just encouraged her to do it more.

To no one’s surprise, the shark became Nimona’s favorite toy. She carried it with her everywhere around the house, and even beyond, when she could convince Ballister or Ambrosius to let her (though Ambrosius was far less likely to agree, or even to be in the same room as the thing). He couldn’t always protect himself, as Nimona had a habit of pulling it out at unexpected times, often from unexpected places. On one particularly upsetting occasion, Ambrosius was playing with a sharkless Nimona in the family room, when the shark fell on his head. Ambrosius had fully inspected the room earlier and was looking at Nimona when it happened. Ballister wasn’t even home. Ambrosius never did learn how she pulled it off.

As time went on, Nimona found new favorite toys, though she continued to prefer sharks. Ambrosius tried to speed up the process with a stuffed spotted wobbegong (which he still couldn’t believe was actually a shark). Nimona saw right through him, but when Ballister made her a mechanical shark that actually swam through the air sometime later, Nimona actually seemed to more or less forget about the hammerhead devil. Ambrosius found that quite unfair.

When the memory of the shark was finally a safe enough distance away, the family (mostly Nimona and Ballister, to be honest) would sometimes reference the shark’s motto (you’d be surprised how often hammerhead sharks come up in everyday conversation, even in a house where the daughter isn’t extremely interested in them). It was even longer before Ambrosius didn’t shudder slightly at the mentions.

When Nimona was twenty-two, she cleaned out her childhood bedroom to fully move into her own place.

Her room was a mess of half-filled boxes as she began cleaning out her closet for the first time in years (or quite possibly ever). Several inches of old clothes covered the floor, along with various trinkets from over the years.

Cleaning was as onerous as Nimona had expected (which is to say, very; there’s a reason she hadn’t done it sooner). The clothes had to be sorted; they went into either the donation bag or the laundry basket. The stuff also needed to be sorted, a process which took the longest time (Nimona read through each paper she unearthed; there were a lot of them). She found an old backpack of hers nestled among a science fair trophy (she had made a truly epic robot, with surprisingly little help from Ballister) and a book that she had borrowed from a friend over a year ago (whoops). Inside the backpack was a thing that probably used to be an apple. The backpack went in the trash.

Slowly, the closet started to empty

“What’s that?” Nimona said out loud.

The most recent clothing to be removed (a disgustingly frilly dress, thrown unceremoniously into the donation bag) had revealed a bit of grey fabric, slightly fuzzy. Nimona pulled it out and grinned.

It took almost a minute, but she finally found the button.

“I AM A HAMMERHEAD SHARK. SHARKS HAVE NO BONES.” The voice sounded a little fuzzy, but clearer than Nimona had expected after all those years.

“Yesssss.”

Ambrosius was sitting at the kitchen table with Ballister, talking about boring adult stuff. (Just because Nimona was an adult too didn’t mean she couldn’t still find adult stuff boring.) Nimona stopped in the doorway. Catching Ballister’s eye over Ambrosius’s shoulder, she held up the shark and winked. Ballister nodded slightly in understanding.

Nimona walked up behind Ambrosius, watching out for the notoriously squeaky section of the floor. She pressed the button and quickly dropped the shark in Ambrosius’s lap.

“I AM A HAMMERHEAD SHARK. SHARKS HAVE NO BONES.”

“NOT AGAIN!”

Nimona cackled.

The shark went with her in the move, where it received a place of honor among several family photos and similarly precious keepsakes (and, of course, wherever Ambrosius was most likely to stumble upon it when he and Ballister came to visit). Every so often, she would pull it down from the shelf and press the button in its fin, just for old times' sake.

"I AM A HAMMERHEAD SHARK. SHARKS HAVE NO BONES."

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Noelle Stevenson's Gay Dad's AU, especially this post: https://gingerhaze.tumblr.com/post/120089437173/gay-dads-au-baby-nimona-watching-her-favorite  
> but also this one (https://gingerhaze.tumblr.com/post/98856855208/i-love-you-all-very-much) and this one (https://gingerhaze.tumblr.com/post/112199089548/gay-dads-au-and-a-wee-punk-teen-nimona).
> 
> The hammerhead shark is a real toy. Some family friends had one when I was a kid, and I may or may not have been terrified of it.
> 
> Yes, I did research shark facts for this fic. The spotted wobbegong is a type of carpet shark, which looks pretty much like the name suggests. I highly recommend looking them up :)


End file.
